


breaking and entering

by silverislander



Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: Bad Decisions, Breaking and Entering, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Idiots in Love, Missing Scene, No Angst, Pregnancy, Sleep Deprivation, Useless Lesbian Ellie (The Last of Us), but otherwise NOTHING, dina gets to sleep <3, ellie goes full idiot mode, of course, ok maybe a little angst but its literally like one line at the very end, takes place in between seattle and the farm, technically jj is there too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:15:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27552151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverislander/pseuds/silverislander
Summary: Ellie would be the first to admit she didn’t make good decisions when she hadn’t slept, but Dina sounded so disappointed that it tore her up inside.  What was she gonna do, not try to get the love of her life something to make her feel better?  Her fried brain immediately went into emergency planning mode as she tried to work out what she could do to help.And that’s when the idea hit her.It was terrible.  It was idiotic.It just might work.
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us), Ellie & Maria (The Last of Us)
Comments: 22
Kudos: 108





	breaking and entering

Ellie could do this. She was basically the stealth master. The thought struck her, however, as she was clambering through the back window to the Tipsy Bison on less than two hours of sleep, that she had never really considered using her powers for this.

Not long ago, she had been warm and comfortable in her bed, completely content to never move again. Part of that was definitely due to Dina lying in front of her, facing away but snuggled as tightly she could into Ellie’s chest. She kept an arm wrapped protectively around her girlfriend, making sure it was comfortable- namely, above her very pregnant belly. Dina was due in just a few weeks, and to say Ellie was a nervous wreck was an understatement. She didn’t know the first thing about parenting, let alone babies. In the meantime, she distracted herself with Dina and anything she could possibly need.

If there was anything at all that needed doing, Ellie had it done. Dishes? Clean before Dina was even awake. Fixing meals? Well, she was no chef, but Dina seemed to like the food she made for her. Baby-proofing the house, which she had  _ not _ only just learned about last week and definitely not almost had an anxiety attack over? No problem. Already done. They were going to have the safest fucking baby in the state of Wyoming. Ellie figured if she couldn’t figure out anything else, she’d make damn sure Dina was as happy and safe as possible. Lord knows she needed it now. In her own words, the third trimester was a bitch and she couldn’t wait for it to be over.

For the moment, Ellie settled with just holding her, just breathing her in. A day never went by when she didn’t think about how lucky she was to have Dina, especially after  _ Seattle _ \- no, she’s not going to think about that now. She shoved the thought away before it could begin to gnaw at her. She’s safe. She’s home. She pressed a kiss to the top of Dina’s head, which she had found helped ground her better than anything.

Dina stirred, and Ellie inwardly cursed herself for waking her.

Her voice was soft and sleepy and adorable, and fuck, Ellie loves her. “Hi, baby.”

“Hey,” Ellie whispered, smiling.

“You’re still awake?” Fuck.

“Uh... yeah. Sorry.” She kissed her head again. “I’m just- can’t sleep.” At least it wasn’t nightmares this time.

“Don’t apologize, it’s okay.”

“Sor- hm.” She was getting better at this, not apologizing unless she’s done something. For the most part, at least. Dina giggled.

“You alright?” Ellie asked gently.

“Hm, yeah, I’m good.” Something in her voice caught, though. Ellie noticed it.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing, I’m fine. Go to sleep.”

“It’s not nothing. What is it?”

Dina sighed. “Just- I’m kinda hungry.”

“For what?” Ellie asked, already mentally preparing to drag herself out of bed and make her anything she wants.

“It’s stupid.”

“Dina. What do you want?”

She sighed again, this time laughing slightly. The sound vibrated through Ellie’s own chest. “You know those chicken sandwiches we get sometimes when we’re in town? I could really, really go for one of those right now.”

“You mean the ones from the bar?” The ones from  _ Seth’s _ bar, who still gave her and Dina weird, angry glances to this day? The bar that was definitely, certainly, very much closed at three A.M. on a Thursday?

“Yeah. Isn’t that dumb?” Dina muttered. “It’s okay, we can get some later when it’s not the middle of night, and I’m, y’know, not about to pop.”

Ellie would be the first to admit she didn’t make good decisions when she hadn’t slept, but Dina sounded so disappointed that it tore her up inside. What was she gonna do, not try to get the love of her life something to make her feel better? Her fried brain immediately went into emergency planning mode as she tried to work out what she could do to help.

And that’s when the idea hit her.

It was terrible. It was idiotic.

It just might work.

“I’ll go see what I can do,” Ellie grinned, sliding out of bed. Dina whined and reached out an arm for her to come back, but Ellie could see she was still smiling. As much as Dina hated to admit it, Ellie knew she loved that Ellie was taking care of her. She took Dina’s hand, rubbing her knuckles fondly, and kissed it before standing and looking for her clothes.

Dina whistled as she ripped her pajama shirt off and struggled into a sweater that she was pretty sure was actually Dina’s. “Didn’t know I was getting a free show with my meal. Or is this the meal?” Ellie tossed the shirt she’d taken off right back at her just to listen to her squeal and laugh.

“I shouldn’t be long,” she promised.

“Ellie?” She turned to look back at Dina, still wrapped up in the covers, but now holding Ellie’s discarded shirt to her chest like a blanket. Her eyes were soft. She was trusting Ellie with this. “Don’t do anything stupid for me.”

Oh, boy, was she about to.

Twenty minutes later, Ellie stood outside the bar, staring awkwardly up at the locked building. Of course it was closed- she knew that. Her hand found her knife inside her jacket pocket, rubbing over it idly. Going and waking up Seth was not an option.  _ Hey, we haven’t talked in a while and I know you hate my guts, you old bigot, but my pregnant girlfriend, who you also hate, is really craving a sandwich, so can you open your whole store three hours early just for me? _ Not happening.

It was time for plan B. B as in b-terrible. As in b-Dina was going to absolutely obliterate her if she ever found out what she was doing and how she was putting herself in “danger” (which, really? she’s taken out clickers and bloaters and practically every damn Scar and WLF in Seattle, this wasn’t dangerous).

Ellie didn’t care. If she was being honest with herself, she would burn down whole cities for Dina- for anyone she cared about. She had almost done it before. This was nothing. And she’d pay Seth back, so it wasn’t like it was stealing.

She walked around to the back of the building, dragged a dumpster underneath a window, and jimmied the lock.

This was where she found herself thinking about her remarkable stealth skills- halfway through the window to the bar in the middle of the night, preparing to not-steal her girlfriend a chicken sandwich. She’s not really sure how her life came to this.

Ellie quietly lowered herself to the floor, looking around- she was surrounded by boxes of vegetables, crates of beer and various condiments on shelves. This is the back storage room. Okay, so the kitchen shouldn’t be far. She’ll get in there, take two of the sandwiches on display at the bar and walk out like nothing ever happened. Stealth fucking master.

She tripped over a box and slammed her face into the floor. Cursing, she glared at the cardboard as if it had betrayed her.

She got up and crept to the door, still feeling slightly paranoid despite the town being completely empty at this hour in the morning. It was unlocked, and she thanked whoever was watching over her for that- a broken window could be a coincidence. A broken door was a break-in.

The door opened not to the kitchen, but a dark hallway of doors. She wished frantically for her flashlight, left on her bag at home and untouched since her last venture on patrol. Ellie took a deep breath and forced herself to continue.

Almost every door was locked, and it wasn’t until the last one that she realized they had signs on them. She couldn’t read them in the darkness, but she felt the engravings with her hand and took her best guess. Sighing, she walked back down the hallway, tracing each one until she found what she assumed to be the kitchen. This one was locked, and she reluctantly pulled out her knife to pick it.

When the door swung open, Ellie stopped, stared into it and groaned. Seth’s last name was fucking  _ Kitchener _ . She’d accidentally picked the lock to his office.

She was definitely gonna have to lie low for a few weeks until news of the “robbery” blew over.

Unfortunately, she didn’t know how to relock a door with a knife. She had to settle for closing it gently before heading to her next best guess for the door. This time, she was more careful; she was at least seventy- no, eighty percent sure this was the actual kitchen. She couldn’t afford to fuck this up any worse. Dina was counting on her. Plus, the sooner she finished up here, the faster she could go home and sleep. She could barely keep her eyes open as it was.

This time, she was right. Ellie inwardly cheered as she snuck through the kitchen to the dining area, painfully aware of the windows making her visible from the street.

She caught her foot on a houseplant, of all things, and just barely managed to grab the edge of the counter before hitting the ground. The plant, however, was not so lucky. It fell to the floor with a clatter. She hit the ground instinctively.  _ Nobody heard that. Please tell me nobody heard that. _

Nobody seemed to. She got up slowly and made her way to the display case, a refrigerated glass shelf that Seth kept behind the counter. She’d seen it a million times- it wouldn’t be hard to take from. She didn’t even have to open anything- she just reached in, grabbed two paper-wrapped sandwiches after ensuring they were the right kind (she didn’t pretend to understand the concept of which meat was kosher despite Dina’s explanations, but she was  _ not _ going back and doing this again if she fucked it up) and stuffed them in the front of her jacket. She dropped a small bag on the counter as payment- little supplies she and Dina had lying around their house, things she thought Seth could maybe make use of.

The front door made a jingling noise.

Ellie dropped to the floor again, cursing internally. She heard the door open and two sets of feet walk in. The bar didn’t even open until five on patrol days. Why were there people here now? More importantly, how the fuck was she going to get out of this? It didn’t look good- the back window broken, Seth’s office wide open and Ellie lying on the floor like she’s hiding something, which she most certainly was, although not what they might expect. God, she was going to be on stable cleaning duties for the rest of her life.

Two voices muttered quietly- a man and a woman. Try as she might, she couldn't make out what they were saying, and that was strange for her. Dina had always said she had scarily good hearing. Fuck, what was she going to tell Dina? She was a dead woman.

Maria’s voice rang out through the bar, exasperated. “Ellie Williams, will you get your ass out here right now.”

It wasn’t a question. Ellie stood sheepishly, not quite meeting Maria’s eyes.

“How did you know she… ?” Seth asked, looking genuinely confused. Maria rolled her eyes.

“My niece tended to get herself into this sort of situation when she was young- I would’ve hoped she’d’ve grown up some, but here we are. Now, what the hell are you doing here?” Maria asked sternly, crossing her arms. If Dina didn’t kill her first, Maria looked ready to finish the job.

“Why are  _ you _ here?” Ellie blurted. Her mouth was gonna be the death of her one of these days.

“We got a call about some noise down here, thought it might be raccoons again. I’ll ask you again, what do you think you’re doing?”

Ellie rubbed the back of her neck and felt her face turn red. “I don’t know.”

“Well, you’d better figure it out, because I know you wouldn’t just be breaking and entering without a reason, and it better be a damn good reason, too. Start talking.”

If Ellie could blush any harder, she would. “I, uh.”

“Yeah?”

“Dina was craving sandwiches,” she muttered. Maria stared at her.

“So you’re telling me your girlfriend wanted sandwiches at three in the morning, and you woke up and decided to break into Seth’s bar and steal them.”

“...She’s pregnant,” Ellie defended weakly. “And I wasn’t stealing.” She pointed to the bag she left on the counter. “I paid.”

“So just regular, run of the mill breaking and entering, then.”

_ Well, when you put it like that, it sounds dumb _ . “... Yes, ma’am.”

Maria sighed and uncrossed her arms to rub at her temples. She did that a lot around Ellie. Seth just looked too bleary to show any other emotion than sheer bafflement.

“Ellie,” she started. “That’s pretty damn stupid.” Her stare burned a hole through Ellie, who knew she was looking at the dark bags under her eyes, her mismatched clothes, her messy excuse of a ponytail.

“I know,” she mumbled. She opened her jacket to put the sandwiches back in the case. “Sorry. You can keep the payment, too.” As much as she hated to be nice to Seth, she admitted that she did sort of owe him for this.

Maria stormed over, and Ellie momentarily saw her life flash before her own eyes before the older woman thrust the sandwiches back at her. She shook her head in exasperation. “Take them to her.”

“What?” Ellie and Seth started at the same time, but Maria held up a finger.

“The girl paid you, Seth, and she didn’t break anything.” Ellie gulped, remembering the office door and the backroom boxes. “Understand that I will never do this for you again. Don’t make this a habit. I wouldn’t be doing this now if Dina wasn’t pregnant and if I didn’t like her so much.”

“She has that effect,” Ellie muttered.

“Sorry for the trouble, Seth. Go home, get some rest. Ellie… go give your girl her sandwiches.” Maria turned to walk away, shaking her head again. Ellie barely heard her as she mumbled, “Sometimes I swear, those Millers never used a brain cell between the three of ‘em.”

An hour after she first left, Ellie dragged herself back inside her own house again, where Dina was waiting upstairs. Unsurprisingly, she had never left the bed.

“Dina,” she called quietly. Dina peeked her head out from the blankets and smiled.

“Hey. Where’d you go? You took-” she yawned- “a long time.” Ellie smiled and sat down next to her, pulling off her coat and jeans. She removed the sandwiches from her jacket with a flourish, and Dina gasped.

“Where- how did you?...” She reached for one, and Ellie was happy to give it to her.

“Magic,” Ellie teased. Dina rolled her eyes, taking a bite. She fell back onto the pillow and groaned.

“I can’t even tell you how good that is right now.”

“Glad to hear it.” Ellie shuffled her way under the blankets with her, her arms finding their way around her girlfriend again.

“Can you, uh, prop me back up again?” Dina asked sheepishly. Ellie did as requested, and Dina took another bite as she rested a hand on her stomach. Looking down at her, Ellie pressed a lingering kiss to her temple.

“I love you,” Ellie whispered.

“I love you, too, baby,” Dina responded.

“No, that’s the baby.” Ellie pointed to her stomach with a grin.

“Well, we love him, too,” Dina smiled fondly. Ellie shifted herself further down and kissed her stomach where her shirt rode up.

“You hear that?” she asked. “We love you.”

Dina, finishing her sandwich, shuffled to lie down facing Ellie. She laid a small hand on Ellie’s cheek, who turned into the contact. “You’re gonna be such a good mom,” she murmured.

Ellie opened her mouth to protest, but thought about it instead. It was true she didn’t have a lot- okay,  _ any _ experience with babies, or parents, or how to raise a kid without fucking them up. She was still scared shitless and completely unsure about everything, and some days she wondered if she should even be trying to do this, to be a parent, at all. But she had never once doubted that she already loved this kid, or that she had always loved Dina.

It occurred to her that if she would be willing to break into a bar for Dina, or give up on a revenge quest just because it had hurt her, or make any number of wild decisions for her, she would absolutely do the same for this baby. She already loved her wholeheartedly (Dina was wrong- they were having a girl, she was sure of it). Maybe that would be enough. If she’d learned anything from Joel, it was that even though you might not know what to do or say, if you loved someone, you’d keep fighting for them. You would do anything.

She kissed Dina again, on the lips this time, and murmured, “Go to sleep now. Love you.”

Dina smiled, curled into her and quickly fell asleep. Just before Ellie did, too, she made a quick promise aloud- to Dina, to the baby, she didn’t know. Both, maybe.

“I’m never gonna leave you. I might not always do this right, but… don’t ever worry about me loving you. I’ll always love you.”

She slept dreamlessly that night.

**Author's Note:**

> ellie's never made a good decision in her life and considering that she canonically loses a lot of sleep post-seattle? she's not about to start today. fun fact: i don't know how, but i wrote and edited this entire fic in a continuous span of twelve hours over the summer. and yet i can't write a 1000 word essay in a week. that's (probably) hyperfocus babey!!
> 
> if you want to yell at/with me, i go by the same username over on tumblr! i love hearing from you all so feel free to send me an ask, message me or just comment right here :)


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